Last autumn a newspaper article captured my attention: "Radio’s 'Dream Doctor‘ in a Nightmare Illness“ (Eric A. Taub, The New York Times, 02 Oct 06). The waking life story of someone who has worked so intensely with dreams is of great interest to me, a dream tender. I tore it out and forgot about it, only to come upon it recently, half a year later. It seems I’d been avoiding the nightmare that the article contained.
As when confronted with any nightmare, the challenge for me is to read this story and discover what meaning it offers me. I find meaning making is enhanced when I work with any story as if it were a sleep dream. To ponder waking life events as I would a dream is by no means to to diminish or trivialize the terrible impact of these events upon Mr. McPhee. Rather, interacting dreamfully with such a life story allows me to discover a deeper personal meaning in another person‘s nightmare. Dreamfulness creates connection and coherence.
The article starts out sounding much like the recounting of a sleep dream. "The listeners were concerned. Was it possible that Charles McPhee, the syndicated radio personality, was broadcasting his show while drunk?"
The quirky dream precipitously becomes a nightmare. "No, but the answer turned out to be even more devastating – Mr. McPhee is suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease.“ Like in a sleep nightmare, an unimagineable dark presence intrudes upon the status quo.
This story is rich in the bold strokes of fairy tales or dreams. "A Princeton-educated 44-year-old with movie-star good looks, Mr. McPhee had made a name for himself with a radio show that helps listeners interpret the meaning and importance of their dreams, 'The Dream Doctor Show.' " Mr. McPhee is like a fairy tale hero. He is the Dream Prince savagely attacked by a dragon.
As in a sleep dream, Mr. McPhee responds to this outrageous monster with magical means. "Mr. McPhee and his syndicator … thought they might be able to keep the show going by using artificial voice technology." Of course! A dream doctor would easily consider using technology’s super-human magic in such an inspired fashion. "If Mr. McPhee could type a sentence, and a computer could speak it in his own voice, listeners might not realize that they weren’t listening to the real thing." An artificial voice, a dream voice, to stand in for the hero, to convince listeners that it is he who is talking about dreams. This is the stuff that always works for the hero in fairy tales and in dreams.
Unfortunatley, unlike in the telling of classic fairy tales, this magic proves to not be effective. "They finally decided it would not work for them. So, Mr. McPhee’s last show will be broadcast later this month." The dragon has taken away the dream doctor’s voice, his ability to communicate verbally about dreams.
The Monster of this waking dream is hideously vicious and powerful. "Like the other 5,000 Americans who get the disease each year, Mr. McPhee will eventually lose his ability to speak, move his arms or legs, and even breathe without a respirator." This particular monster is also, as yet invincible. "There is no cure, and most patients die within a few years of the onset of the illness." This truth makes the nightmare unbearable. It is a nightmare in the face which it is difficult to find any hope.
"Throughout the illness, the mind remains alert, completely aware of the breakdown of the body that encases it. Communication with others soon becomes compromised, and eventually impossible.“ The very substance of Mr. McPhee’s involvement with dreams, an embodied voice with which to communicate, is taken away.
In this dream, after fighting courageously, the hero’s journey involves courageously accepting the insuperable nightmarish circumstances. Utilizing his voice and the magic of the airwaves, Mr. McPhee publicly named the monster: "On Aug. 3, he revealed his diagnosis on the air, on Aug. 25, he discussed his future plans with his listeners.“ He continued availing himself of the timelessness of technology and of dreamwork, broadcast selected programs from the past. The radio dream of "The Dream Doctor“ ended on Oct. 21, 2006, with the show’s final broadcast.
In this waking life dream, the dragon is not vanquished. But neither has the hero, the dreamer, been vanquished in spirit.
The article notes that "Mr. McPhee has noticed a change in his own dreams. In one, he dreamed that he was blind; his eyes had slits like those of a cat." McPhee’s own interpretation of this sleep dream: "I understood that I had been blind to the quickness and severity of A.L.S.,“ he said. "The clock really is ticking; I need to plan.“
Perhaps this is what this waking life nightmare tells me: for all of us - for me too - the clock is ticking. Without a particular dragon breathing fire down my neck, it is easy to act as if somehow the dragon of death is not lying in wait for me. It would behoove me to invoke a certain sense of urgency in tending to my various dreams, as if my days were numbered. Which they are.
If the value of working with dreams is to find or make coherence in one’s life, then Mr. McPhee seems to have succeeded, even in the face of his horrendous waking life nightmare. "My big goal in life was to learn and understand the language of dreams. I really feel like I’ve done it."